Cub Scouts: More than Crafts and Activities
by Rick Emry
One of my first recollections as a Cub Scout is seeing my mom in her yellow den uniform and I in my navy blue shirt and yellow and blue neckerchief. I was about eight or nine years of age and this is my earliest real memory of my mom spending individual time with me. Being that I grew up in a family with two other sisters and a younger brother, I view this as a special time, as my mom was usually kept busy with the house and helping my dad with his paperwork for his auto mechanic shop, which was out back behind our house. My mom would organize den meetings in our living room and I would have another three to four of my friends over as part of our den.
Den meetings would be every couple of weeks in our small house on Second Street in what is now known as Sunny Side right next door to La Fonda restaurant. The house itself was rather small, maybe 800 square feet. My brother and I shared a room, as did my sisters. The living room had been recently remodeled by my dad and his friends, yet with four to five boys and two den leaders there still didn’t seem to be enough room. The street was at that time a red cindered street periodically oiled with used motor oil, the smell of which would permeate for days, especially in the hot days of summer.
I would spend time doing various crafts dependant upon the time of year. I remember that I made Reader’s Digest Snowmen by folding page after page with opposing triangles at each end of each page forming the body and then affixing a Styrofoam ball for its head to the top, complete with black felt eyes and orange felt nose. I made a small plant pot with two tin coffee cans, tubes from toilet tissue, paper tape and plaster of Paris. The can had a rectangle cut out of the side, then the two open ends were taped together, after which I would use short pieces of tissue tubes taped in place to simulate tree limbs. The can was coated with a thick layer of plaster which I ran my fingers through in order to shape it to look like bark. Once the plaster was dried I painted it brown, after which a plant could be placed into it. For many years my mom kept a plant alive in that planter, up on the window sill of our small kitchen.
Our pack meetings which were held once a month at the nearby Mt. Elden School (Now Killip) would sometimes include a pot luck dinner. I can’t say why, maybe it was the smell of melted cheese and the taco seasoning, but what I remember most was the taco casserole baked to a toasty golden brown which someone always seemed to bring. To this day the sight and smell of a taco casserole always make me hungry.
The pack meeting would usually start with the Pack Chief, who was in full Indian headdress and costume complete with red face paint and buckskin leather pants with bells, who was hiding behind closed doors, would yell out “Are you ready?” The scouts and their parents would all respond, “Yes”, after which the Chief would yell, “I can’t hear you!” This would go on a couple of times until we all yelled really loud which would cause him to come yelling and screaming and dancing into the gym.
Sometimes I would have other scout activities at the school, which usually involved propeller driven rocket races or C-O2 propelled car races that I crafted. There would be heavy fishing line strung across the gym from end to end. I remember trying to twist my rocket’s rubber band really tight. The rocket was then hung from the wire and then I would let the propeller go. I was encouraged to cheer for the other boys and congratulate those who won.
I also can recall how our yearly fund raiser for the Pack and Local charities involved selling the deep green and rubbery leafed mistletoe with its waxy white pea size berries. I would sell this door to door in our neighborhood and being that it was near Christmas it was a fairly easy sell at the time. I had small pieces individually wrapped in sandwich bags. The cold air would cause condensation to form as I stood in the doorway as the warm interior air exited the house.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that all of these crafts, meetings and time spent going door to door to raise funds for our pack were much more than merely fun activities, they were in fact purpose driven to build character. Even though I did not participate in Scouts for more than a year or two, as best that I can remember, I now see how these activities encouraged team work, self reliance and self confidence, to include community involvement, all of which are important qualities if one is to be a participating and productive member of society.
Now that I have two sons of my own, it is my hope and desire that they will be inspired through their involvement in Scouts to be active in the community. As Scout Master of our pack with over 60 boys! I constantly encourage them to do their best and to always do what’s right even through it may be difficult at the time. I only hope that my sons, as well as the boys I come into contact with through the pack, will have much more and meaningful memories of their Scouting experience, and take into adulthood the values that Scouting stands for.